Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,71

at him again—he barely dodges it.

From the woods comes a sound—a snapping of branches. Louder. Faster. Someone or something is coming.

Atlanta darts her gaze in that direction.

Oh no.

It’s the Cooch. Tressa Kucharski. Barreling forward like that stompy moose except this time it’s a stompy moose with a gun in her hand—where’d she get a gun? Where’d she even come from?

Atlanta turns, steps back, almost trips over a loose restraint pole that she didn’t see—

Tressa has the gun up. She’s making a sound like that raccoon did: half-growl, half-scream.

Everything’s gone suddenly pear-shaped. Reality off its leash.

Twenty feet and closing.

Atlanta staggers, stands, runs.

Fifteen feet.

Bodie laughs. Bird just shrinks.

Ten feet.

The gun fires.

It barely makes a sound.

Just a little snap.

Atlanta feels something hit in the meat of her lower back—feels like a flicking finger. She bolts forward, feeling with her hands where the bullet hit her—she expects a hole, some blood, something, but all she finds is a little nub that wasn’t there before. She runs into the woods like a panicked animal, the nub coming off in her fingers, and as she crashes against a tree her head starts feeling woozy, everything sliding sideways like the earth is tilting, like it’s all loose furniture on a sinking ship

She sees that what she’s got in her hands is a small tranquilizer dart.

The forest collapses inward.

Tressa crashes into her.

* * *

She never really passes out. The world goes greasy, like she’s staring through glasses smeared with thumb-streaks of Vaseline. Her body doesn’t respond to the commands her brain gives it. Limbs sit dead, disconnected from the rest of the human machine. She tries to speak. It only comes out slurred gibberish.

Atlanta can hear them, though their voices sound like they’re talking through a long metal pipe—echoing and hollow, close but distant. Tressa outs her as the one who stopped them from stealing the beagle. Bird panics, says they should get their uncle. Bodie says no, says they can handle it, and besides, he has an idea. His hands find her face, grip her chin and cheeks hard—it should hurt but it doesn’t. Feels like she’s at the dentist. A spreading gooey numbness that does little to quash the fear.

Bodie whispers in Tressa’s ear. Atlanta sees the two of them smash together like blobs inside a lava lamp. Hears the sounds of them making out. Bird just mumbles and moans, the sad sound of a kicked puppy.

Tressa and Bodie grab her under her arms. Together they drag her across the concrete.

The forest is a blotchy mess. She sees someone in the woods watching. It’s Chris. He waves at her—a chipper finger waggle, as if to say, toodle-oo.

More animal noises. Bird again? No. The raccoon. Bodie has the animal—the collar’s off, the chain against the ground. He sticks the knife in its neck and throws it into the woods where Atlanta sees the brown shape run about ten feet then drop. It’s just a lump, but she sees its haunches twitching. Hears it whimpering.

Then—

Fingers around her neck. The jingle of a collar. The rattle of a chain.

They’re hooking me up to the pole.

I’m the coon.

I’m the bait.

She finds the slack in her mental rope and pulls it tight—she’s able to get her hand up and swat at Bodie and Tressa but it’s a dumb, numb paw, and the fingers still don’t work. Tressa slaps her once, twice, a third time. It doesn’t sting but it rocks her head back against the metal pole and that hurts, and she thinks the pain is good because it means the tranq is starting to leave her system.

“Get her hands,” Bodie says. Tressa moves behind her. Winds another chain around her hands. The metal is cold and she tries to pull away but her body still isn’t listening.

Bodie gets between her legs. Eyes glide over her. That mean smile. A grim chuckle. He lets his hand fall to her thigh and it feels like a heavy weight and like it’s not there at all and inside she’s a barn full of horses suddenly on fire but outside she can’t do much more than shift her weight and moan against her teeth.

Tressa punches him. “Hey.”

“Whatever,” he says. His hand leaves Atlanta’s thigh.

There, in the woods, Atlanta sees a shape in the trees. A shadow hanging. A body. She sees Chris’ face—purple bruised, tongue thrust out from between dead lips. He winks.

Then—a white blur, a snowy shape, a hot humid blast. Bodie brings the big white dog over to her. Shoves his face